Council majority leader Chris Paplauskas, along with the other Republican members of the City Council, are sponsoring a resolution urging the State General Assembly to require all school buses purchased or leased after the first day of 2020 to have seat belts.

Paplauskas said this resolution is partly motivated by a 2015 endorsement of seat belts in schools buses by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Although they still believe buses are “safe enough” as they are, he said, they now say that seat belts in buses would improve the safety for the students riding in them.

He also said that there are already six states (New Jersey, New York, Florida, California, Louisiana, and Texas) that require school bus seat belts.

The other motivation is that he personally believes seat belts should be in buses to make them safer.

“The bottom line is that seat belts will make it safer for the kids,” he said.

Superintendent Jeannine Nota said that she’s heard both sides of the argument in regards to this idea.

“I see both side of it,” she said. “You have such a large vehicle, are they really necessary? But we also think they’re important in airplanes and cars, so why not buses?

She added that if the students needed to evacuate from the bus quickly, a seat belt might impair them from doing so.

But the students’ safety is most important, she expressed, so she would adhere to any laws that required Cranston schools to make sure that the new buses they buy or lease have seat belts in them. She said this issue has been discussed periodically at the state level.

Chief Operating Officer of schools Ray Votto agreed with the Superintendent that there are two schools of thought.

One side, he said, is that buses are already built to protect kids and if an accident were to happen, such as the bus turning over, first responders may have difficulty getting the kids out if they’re caught in seat belts.

Votto said that Cranston has around 80 buses running on a daily basis during the school year, roughly 50 of which are large school buses that don’t have seat belts. The others are smaller buses that already have seat belts or specialty seats for students with special needs.

Votto said that with all those buses, there would “definitely be a cost,” which he said is a factor that often isn’t considered in proposals like this. He said that in addition to putting in seat belts in the newer buses, there also might need to be more buses on the road because some allow for three students to a seat currently, and that may not be the case if seat belts were put in.

“Nobody can tell us right now what the cost would be,” Votto said.

He added that the safety of the students is most important, but there are a number of factors to be considered before something like this could be implemented.

 “Maybe we can get it passed,” Councilman Paplauskas said about a potential bill. “At least we can give them [General Assembly] a nudge to take a look at it.”